Bring sunlight into rooms or hallways without window access with tubular skylighting, or solar lighting. These units capture daylight and redirect it through a reflective tube into dark areas inside your home.
Consider low-voltage lighting wherever possible for your landscaping. A string of 6 low-voltage lights use about 108 watts, compared to a single 150-watt floodlight.
Decorating with light colors will require fewer watts to illuminate the room.
Don’t overlight. Switch to lower wattages when possible.
Keep light bulbs and light fixtures clean.
Reflector bulbs provide more directional light and can last twice as long as regular incandescent bulbs.
Turn off lights, especially incandescent lights, when you’re leaving the room for more than a few minutes at a time.
Use 1 higher wattage bulb instead of several with lower wattages. One 100-watt bulb produces more light and uses less power than two 60-watt bulbs.
Use light sensors, motion detectors, or timers to turn lights on and off automatically. Automatic controls can easily pay for themselves if you program them to turn security lights on and off instead of leaving them on 24 hours a day while you are on vacation.
When an incandescent bulb burns out, choose an LED, which uses only 20-25% of power and lasts up to 25 times as long as the incandescent bulbs they're replacing.
Why use lights when the sun may be able to do the job for you? Take advantage of opportunities to let natural light into your home, particularly rooms with northern exposures.